Wednesday, November 28, 2012

SAD NEWS

Two weeks ago, award-winning author Sandra Humphrey interviewed me on this blog.Today, I received the shocking and tragic news
that Sandra and her husband Brien were killed in a house fire in their Minnesota
home.May they rest in peace and may
perpetual light shine upon them.

Sandra's literary
work touched the lives of many and inspired countless young people. I urge my
followers to look at her blog. http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/108747.Sandra_McLeod_Humphrey/blog

Tuesday, November 13, 2012

BLOG HOPPING
THROUGH SOME GREAT BOOKS

For those who are not familiar with a blog hop, it is a lot like a
treasure hunt.One you find something on
one blog, you hop over to the next link for more treasure. In this case, the
treasure is a wealth of new and exciting books. Some are still being written,
some are just being released.Either
way, for book lovers, it is a treasure and I would like to thank author

In this
particular post, I hope to answer 10 questions and you get to learn about one
of two powerful women and the role they played in shaping the history and
legends of New Orleans.

Q & A:

WHAT IS THE TITLE OF YOUR BOOK?L'immortalité: Madame
Lalaurie and the Voodoo Queen.

WHERE DID THE IDEA COME FROM FOR THE
BOOK?Almost
every day in New Orleans, hundreds of people pay and line up to take walking
tours in order to see the exterior of Madame Delphine Lalaurie's haunted
mansion and to visit the grave of Voodoo Queen Marie Laveau.A few years ago, I took one of those tours
and I loved the story so much, I wanted to read a book about it when I got
home.That's when I discovered there was
no book.Lots of blurbs on the internet,
chapters in a few books, references in a couple more, but no book that told the
whole history and legend.After I
began writing, two non-fiction history texts were published that covered the
factual history of Delphine Lalaurie (lots of footnotes, genealogy, and documentation).Great stuff if you are a historian, maybe not
if, like the hundreds of people who take the walking tours, you're looking for
suspense and entertainment.

WHAT GENRE DOES YOUR BOOK FALL UNDER?It
blends genres:Historical Fiction and
Horror.On another level, it is an irreverent
meditation on what people will do to persist beyond their earthly lives.

WHICH ACTORS WOULD YOU CHOOSE TO PAY YOUR CHARACTERS IN A MOVIE RENDITION?

For Madame Delphine LaLaurie, Courteney Cox and for Marie Laveau,
Zoe Saldana.Sahara Garey would be ideal
for the Lalaurie's runaway slave, Elise.I think Robert Pattinson would make a good Philippe, the sacristan
protagonist in my story.Shaver Ross
could play Bastien, Delphine Lalaurie's driver, and William Shatner should play
Doctor Louis Lalaurie.

WHAT
IS A ONE-SENTENCE SYNOPIS OF YOUR BOOK?

In this historical horror story set in antebellum New
Orleans, a voodoo queen helps an elite slave owner, a cathedral sacristan, and runaway
slave find immortality in ways both macabre and beautiful.

IS YOUR BOOK SELF-PUBLISHED OR REPRESENTED BY AN AGENCY?It is published by Nonius LLC Publishing.

HOW LONG DID IT TAKE YOU TO WRITE THE FIRST DRAFT OF YOUR MANUSCRIPT?The first
draft took about 16 months, most of which was spent in doing research,talking to sources, digging through
libraries, and trying to get a feel for what it looked, smelled, and felt like
in New Orleans in the 1830's.It took
another year to finish the story.

WHAT OTHER BOOKS WOULD YOU COMPARE THIS STORY TO WITHIN YOUR GENRE?

Seth
Grahame-Smith's Abraham Lincoln: Vampire
Slayer.

WHO OR WHAT INSPIRED YOU TO WRITE THIS BOOK? 27
years ago, I founded a non-profit organization to provide for orphaned children
and I spend most of my time working with our orphanage in Sonora, Mexico.I wanted to find something to do on my free
days that had nothing to do with seeing molested, abused and abandoned
children.I failed.The book recalls the history of horrendous
abuse of enslaved human beings.I credit
the guides at French Quarter Phantoms and Strange True Tours in
New Orleans for giving me the subject matter and my two sons for encouraging me
to write the book.

Friday, November 9, 2012

Writing a Mixed Genre Story

When I first heard
the history and urban legends surrounding Madame
Delphine Lalaurie, I knew I had to write the book.She was a colorful piece of New Orleans
history and it was important to gather as many historical facts about the
woman, the times, the culture and the physical locations as I could.The research took eighteen months (after
which, two very good history books were published that would have saved a great
deal of duplicated efforts if they had come out just a bit sooner.

People pay for tours
and line up every day to see the Lalaurie Mansion, to visit the grave of Marie
Laveau, to walk down Pirates Alley. I knew it was more than just the (sometimes-boring)
historical facts that draw all these daily visitors to see the places where my
story takes place.Nearly two centuries
of urban legend add to the fun, the thrill, the motivation to visit these
historic sites, and if my book was to entertain, the best of that legend needed
to be included.

L'immortalité:
Madame Lalaurie and the Voodoo Queen is both historical fiction and
horror…and something else.Fans of
historic fiction tell me that I captured the times, what things looked, smelled
and sounded like in 1833.Horror fans
will find the macabre, a mad scientist torturing people in his attic, the
mystery of voodoo and a smattering of ghosts.A closer look will, I hope, reveal the book as a meditation on the
various ways people seek to persist beyond their mortal lives.Even those who do not believe in the
existence of the soul seek to live on in the minds of others.I believe the real value of the book is in
its reflection on immortality. Let me know what you think.